“…depletion does not have to be apocalyptic. It will only be apocalyptic if we continue to consume oil as we have in the past when it was cheap and abundant. Because I’m an economist and I believe in the power of prices, I believe that we’re going to change. I believe that a global economy, where we move resources all around the world to be assembled by the cheapest labor force and then be shipped to the other end of the world-that’s not a rational way of doing business in a world of $150-a-barrel oil. What we’re going to see is a whole reengineering of our economy, and while we’re going to make a lot of sacrifices in terms of our past energy consumption, we’re going to find that our new smaller world has a lot of silver linings. And in a lot of ways it is going to be more livable and sustainable than the old oily world we’re leaving behind. Peak oil will be an agent of change, and much of that change will be positive, not negative.”
Read the full interview with Jeff Rubin.
